Fabrication of Uranium Oxycarbide Kernels for HTR Fuel
Babcock and Wilcox (B&W) has been producing high quality uranium oxycarbide (UCO) kernels for Advanced Gas Reactor (AGR) fuel tests at the Idaho National Laboratory. In 2005, 350-µm, 19.7% 235U-enriched UCO kernels were produced for the AGR-1 test fuel. Following coating of these kernels and forming the coated-particles into compacts, this fuel was irradiated in the Advanced Test Reactor (ATR) from December 2006 until November 2009. B&W produced 425-µm, 14% enriched UCO kernels in 2008, and these kernels were used to produce fuel for the AGR-2 experiment that was inserted in ATR in 2010. B&W also produced 500-µm, 9.6% enriched UO2 kernels for the AGR-2 experiments. Kernels of the same size and enrichment as AGR-1 were also produced for the AGR-3/4 experiment. In addition to fabricating enriched UCO and UO2 kernels, B&W has produced more than 100 kg of natural uranium UCO kernels which are being used in coating development tests. Successive lots of kernels have demonstrated consistent high quality and also allowed for fabrication process improvements. Improvements in kernel forming were made subsequent to AGR-1 kernel production. Following fabrication of AGR-2 kernels, incremental increases in sintering furnace charge size have been demonstrated. Recently small scale sintering tests using a small development furnace equipped with a residual gas analyzer (RGA) has increased understanding of how kernel sintering parameters affect sintered kernel properties. The steps taken to increase throughput and process knowledge have reduced kernel production costs. Studies have been performed of additional modifications toward the goal of increasing capacity of the current fabrication line to use for production of first core fuel for the Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP) and providing a basis for the design of a full scale fuel fabrication facility.
- Research Organization:
- Idaho National Lab. (INL), Idaho Falls, ID (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- DOE - NE
- DOE Contract Number:
- DE-AC07-05ID14517
- OSTI ID:
- 1016178
- Report Number(s):
- INL/CON-10-18858; TRN: US1103003
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: HTR 2010,Prague, Czech Republic,10/18/2010,10/20/2010
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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